Author-Elect’s Big Books

Sorry, I’ve been a little slow to check in. You might suspect I am still absorbing the aftershocks of Tuesday’s historic election. True. But my biggest excuse is that my machine shut down and never came back on! Computers. Can’t live without ‘em. And yet they can drive you mad. Or, in my case, madder.

But, speaking of that election (which in our fair state is still going on), the President-elect’s books, which have long been big down at the old neighborhood bookstore, are receiving renewed interest since Tuesday. If you haven’t read Dreams from My Father, I highly encourage it. It’s not a sterile political advertisement, as it was written before Barack Obama ran for office. What is is a brilliant memoir by a terrific writer with a rare ability to step outside himself and write dispassionately about universal themes like home and hope and love. I have given it as a gift before. I suspect I will again.

I have not read The Audacity of Hope but I hear it’s a cut above anything in the genre. By the way, both books were in the top 10 on the store’s best sellers for 2008 even before Tuesday.